Catchin' Crawdads

State Biologists Are Raising Crawfish In The Green Swamp To See Whether They'll Be Tasty Enough To Send To Louisiana Restaurants.

December 5, 1992|By Kevin Spear Of The Sentinel Staff

TARRYTOWN — Here in the Green Swamp is a mess of clawed swamp creatures that are said to be tasty enough to make a Cajun's soul smile.

They are a Florida species of crawfish being raised by a state fish hatchery. Biologists want to know if the Green Swamp crawfish have enough tail meat and yellow head goo to meet even Louisiana likings.

So far, the mud bugs have boiled up with the best of them.

''We've done a few test boils and let's put it this way, we've fooled a few transplanted Cajuns,'' said Mike Mitner, a state biologist in charge of the crawfish study.

The point of growing the little crawdads in a state hatchery is to see if they can do as well as Louisiana crawfish species, which growers have been pushing to bring to Florida. The Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission won't bring Louisiana's crawfish east of the Apalachicola River for fear they could disrupt Florida's ecosystems.

But such is the demand for good crawfish that Louisiana restaurants and seafood markets are importing them from outside their state.

''They're doing it in California and a good job of it,'' said Jeff Cronan, manager of the Drusilla Seafood market in Baton Rouge, La.

Louisiana species of crawfish include the succulent basin, or deeper water crawfish, which are light green and have a higher fat content. The state's swamp crawfish are smaller and darker and they are what growers would like to bring into Florida.

But Florida has a species of crawfish similar to the Louisiana swamp crawfish. Biologists call it the Everglades crawfish, and that's the species being raised in the Richloam Fish Hatchery.

The hatchery, near State Road 50 five miles west of Lake County in Sumter County, is generally known for growing more popular fish for stocking the state's waterways.

With 66 square ponds, and nine more about to be finished, Richloam is the biggest state hatchery in the Southeast. The clay-lined ponds are used to grow sterilized Chinese grass carp, black crappie and bass.

Special batches of bluegill and redear sunfish are being grown for stocking low-lying farms in Lake County that have been turned back into lakes and marshes.

Other ponds are growing channel catfish, which sometimes are stocked in urban fishing holes such as Orlando's lakes Santiago, Lorna Doone, Richmond and Ivanhoe.

As manicured as the hatchery environment looks, the ponds are irresistible to the wilder critters of the Green Swamp. Otters, alligators, snakes, eagles and ospreys dine often at Richloam.

The peskiest are cormorants. When those long-necked, swimming birds arrive during migrations, they go from pond to pond, snatching out fish until there are no more.

''We're in the middle of 100,000 acres of swamp out here,'' said hatchery manager Chuck Starling. ''There's not much you can do about it.''

The crawfish are easily the oddest of the hatchery residents and to raise them, biologists are trying to mimic conditions in South Florida where there is the most interest in growing crawfish.

Rice has been planted in shallow ponds to give crawfish cover. Crawfish aren't so interested in rice grain as they are in the rotting rice plant.

Mitner said the decay and muck, and the bacteria and fungi, produce a nourishing stew.

That's a habitat easily reproduced by rice farms south of Lake Okeechobee - alternating rice and crawfish makes them a rotation crop.

Mitner said the most expensive part comes at harvesting time. Crawfish must be caught in traps similar to those used for crabs, which requires a lot of cheap labor.

The Richloam Fish Hatchery has produced crawfish of decent size. On average, they have slightly more tail meat than the Louisiana swamp crawfish.

Mitner said the Louisiana crawfish grow to a size of 15 to 30 per pound, while the Everglades crawfish grown at Richloam grow to the size of 20 to 23 per pound.

Just for perspective, an Australian red claw gets a little bigger: about three-quarters of a pound.